Only if you change the definitions!
It is for Austrian economics. Don’t let your associations with the words cloud your view so much.
If choice is one’s highest preference by definition only, then why is such a definition needed or used?
Okay, will do.
Do you consider reflexes to be choices?
Austrian Economics and praxeology distinguish between action and behavior. The latter includes unconscious or involuntary things like reflexes; the former does not.
I’m not sure at this point – I’ll have to look into it.
No, but I do consider the two categories much fuzzier than most people–especially Austrians–acknowledge.
[quote=“[Colin Camerer, George Loewenstein, and Drazen Prelec]
(http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.63.2976&rep=rep1&type=pdf)”][We tend] to explain behavior egocentrically—to attribute it to the types of deliberative processes that it is responsible for (see Richard Nisbett and Wilson 1977). A dramatic study demonstrating this phenomenon was conducted with a “split-brain” patient (who had an operation separating the connection between the two hemispheres of his brain). The patient’s right hemisphere could interpret language but not speak, and the left hemisphere could speak (LeDoux 1996). The patient’s right hemisphere was instructed to wave his hand (by showing the word “wave” on the left part of a visual screen, which only the right hemisphere processed). The left hemisphere saw the right hand waving but was unaware of the instructions that had been given to the right hemisphere (because the cross-hemisphere connections were severed). When the patient was asked why he waved, the left hemisphere (acting as spokesperson for the entire body) invariably came up with a plausible explanation, like “I saw somebody I knew and waved at them.”
[/quote]
I believe automatic processes can be interpreted–mistakenly–by consciousness as deliberative processes; in regards to the brain, they claim, “[I]t is perhaps not surprising that it tends to over-attribute behavior to itself—i.e., to deliberative decision processes. Even though much of the brain’s activity is ‘cognitively inaccessible,’ we have the illusion that we are able to make sense of it, and we tend to make sense of it in terms of [deliberative] processes.”
[quote=“[Colin Camerer, George Loewenstein, and Drazen Prelec]
(http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.63.2976&rep=rep1&type=pdf)”]Research with EEG recordings has shown (Benjamin Libet 1985) that the precise moment at which we become aware of an intention to perform an action trails the initial wave of brain activity associated with that action (the EEG “readiness potential”) by about 300 msec. The overt behavioral response itself then follows the sensation of intention by another 200 msec. Hence, what is registered in consciousness is a regular pairing of the sensation of intention followed by the overt behavior. Because the neural activity antecedent to the intention is inaccessible to consciousness, we experience “free will” (i.e., we cannot identify anything that is causing the feeling of intention). Because the behavior reliably follows the intention, we feel that this “freely willed” intention is causing the action—but in fact, both the sensation of intention and the overt action are caused by prior neural events which are inaccessible to consciousness (see Daniel Wegner and Thalia Wheatley 1999).
[/quote]
The metaphysical baggage of choice behavior needs to be pruned in order to more fully understand how neural systems generate both behavior and the conscious sensation of choice itself. Therefore, the Austrian insistence upon distinguishing between “action and behavior” becomes more untenable as neuroscience advances.
Without doing any prior analytical operations, I may not know whether removing groups of 8 from 797304 will leave me with a remainder. It may be important for me to know this.
The tautological definition 797304 = 8 x 99663 may provide information important for my welfare.
That’s what Mises means in writing:
“Cognition from purely deductive reasoning is also creative and opens for our mind access to previously barred spheres. The significant task of aprioristic reasoning is on the one hand to bring into relief all that is implied in the categories, concepts, and premises and, on the other hand, to show what they do not imply. It is its vocation to render manifest and obvious what was hidden and unknown before.”
Praxeology is a similar kind of tautological-logical science applied to intentionality as opposed to propositional exchanges (formal logic) or spatio-temporal nature (mathematics).
An example of this kind of tautology might be something like: striving for X is the same thing as (i.e., “=”) not having a wanted X.
What is implied in 797304 ? Among other things: 8 x 99663
What is implied in striving for X? Among other things: not having a wanted X
It is already implied in striving for X that a wanted X is not had. But the tautology brings this implication to immediate discernibility. As Robbins writes:
“If in a given situation, the facts are of a certain order, we are warranted in deducing with complete certainty that other facts which it enables us to describe are also present…If the “given situation” conforms to a certain pattern other features must also be present, for their presence is “deducible” from the pattern originally postulated. The analytic method is simply a way of discovering the necessary consequences of complex collocations of facts—consequences whose counterpart in reality is not so immediately discernable as the counterpart of the original postulates. It is an instrument for “shaking out” all the implications of given suppositions. Granted the correspondence of its original assumptions and the facts, its conclusions are inevitable and inescapable…given the data in a particular situation, it [economics or praxeology] can draw inevitable conclusions as to their implications. And if the data remain unchanged, these implications will certainly be realized. They must be, for they are implied in the presence of the original data.” (An Essay on the Nature and Significance of Economic Science)
To repeat a simple illustrative example, if the “data” are that a person walked toward some location, then we may “deduce” that he walked away from another location. Walking away from a location is implied in walking toward a location; it is implied in the original supposition.
But it is possible to focus on doing something and forget (or not know, or not realize) the tautologically necessary accompaniment. For example, a person may swim out to sea for some time, not realizing how far away from shore they have traveled. By not taking fully into account the tautologically necessary implications of their action (swimming out to sea), they may find themselves dissatisfied with the resultant situation (being far from the shore).
This shows that an actor may fail to bring to conscious awareness the full implications of the actions he is undertaking.
To paraphrase Robbins, praxeology is an instrument for “shaking out” all the implications (the tautological implications) of given suppositions regarding intentional acts.
I don’t see how this is at all relevant. Simon’s satisficing does not say that if given a choice between A or B, where A is more valued than B, but B is “good enough,” that a person may choose B over A, all other things equal. His concept of satisficing has to do with bounded rationality and potential unknown costs (limited knowledge). If anything, Simon’s bounded rationality is practically identical to the Austrian notion of rationality. Both Mises and Simon attacked the neo-classical conception of rationality.
Would you claim that Simon would agree with the Austrians that observed choice behavior is one’s highest preference?
One’s highest known preference, all other things equal.
Simon’s argument was essentially that choices will not yield pareto optimal outcomes because humans have cognitive limitations. Humans do the best they can with what information/reasoning abilities they possess. He basically restated the Austrian argument against the neoclassical position (where individual’s have their preferences, are fully aware of all possible outcomes, and merely choose–no radical uncertainty).
How would you differentiate satisficing from optimizing?
Do you believe “satisficing” can be derived deductively from the axiom of action, or does it necessitate an empirical understanding of human nature?